The members of the group are engaged in two projects that use basic data mining techniques to better understand and interpret cultural products. The Tesserae Project is a web tool that will present a systematic view of similar phrases in literary texts (beginning with Latin), in order to facilitate research into how authors create meaning through repetition and borrowing from others. Epigraphica Dionysiaca seeks to publish a collection of ancient Greek inscriptions relating to the god Dionysus, with translations, so that these texts can be searched in various ways by those interested in probing more deeply into how this god appeared and was understood in Greek culture. Both projects will require collaboration on how to write search strings for useful textual analysis and how to make tools that invite users and researchers to perform creative and productive investigations.

Planned activities:

In addition to its regular meetings, the working group will hold three events in spring 2010: